Summer heat and occasional downpours are working at growing watermelons and greens in the Fruitful Field. The watermelons are growing fast and beautiful and are from the planting activity of the Tedder 1st graders on a spring field trip.

The sliced watermelon was served at the weekly Sunday community breakfast– every Sunday at 9:00 at the Parkway United Methodist Church.

Update: Great success with other 20 volunteers in wonderful sweltering weather!

This nice little tree frog was moved to a new tree home!

When last we talked about Workdays we shared some of the pictures of our fierce efforts at getting out the trees we call invasives. Once again we are inviting you to be part of sending more of these trees to the chipper and the dumpster.

Why the fixation on invasives you ask? The trees are not bad in and of themselves but they have occupied and crowded out the native species, taking over sections of the property. It’s not personal but…. they have to go so we can plant native and fruit-bearing trees:

Native Bald Cypress and develop a really cool wetlands

Native Pines bounded by stylish Native Sea Grapes

More Sub-tropical and Tropical Fruit Trees and Food Production Areas

Bring your clips-trimmers-loppers-shears-pruners and a friend to help. Join us as we cut, clean, and beautify! Maximize hot summer weather and get great things done!!! You know it’s good for you and good for creation!

Here at The Fruitful Field — Parkway Tedder Community Garden– the rains are slowly starting to get more regular and the plants love the warm weather, growing as fast as water and food allow them to.

That means that invasives like the Brazilian Pepper (also called Florida holly) and the Australian pines (nothing against these countries– just these plants) are growing fast too– so soon a July work day for more chainsaw and brush cleaning fun.

Watch this space for the details!

Meanwhile enjoy some recent photos of our Florida Native Plants in full flower. Check out Flickr for more flower pics as well.

Thanks to everyone who came to the Work Day! The hot sunny weather was tolerable as the battle of invasives really went forward.

The day saw new faces (awesome!), chainsaws of all sorts and in all sorts of repair, Japanese machetes, saws, crimpers, oversized wagons and heavy duty work gloves–combined with lots of water/food/and conversation. The a big chunk of Brazilian pepper got hacked down and readied for chipping. Fewer invasives gives room for new trees and a possible wetland in the future.

Not to be left out our super engineer Glenn continued connecting up our state of the art rain catching system with final touches on the tubing system which may send up to 10,000 gallons a minute off the roof and into our irrigation system.

(There are more great pictures on Flickr just click on the sidebar to see the whole set)

On a fun nature note the day also saw the arrival of feathered volunteer– Basil the parakeet who blew in on the wind and wanted to rescued. Cute bird!

Come see if your chain saw is ready for this year’s active hurricane season and take care of invasive trees while you’re at it!

Prefer taking out trees instead of planting them? Then this Work Day is for you! Join us at the Garden and Food Forest with your chain saw, gloves, protective eye & foot gear (yes), and a hat and let’s see how many invasives we can send to the dumpster.

If you would rather take care of baby trees, don’t despair, lots of new tree seedlings still need your help!

Come check out all the new growth since last year, inspect the rain barrels and gardens, haul the invasives, and sweat it out for a morning–you know it’s good for you!